many aeons ago, there was a thread on here about making bread .... it died, perhaps because man shall not live by bread alone ..... anyway, there seem to be a fair number of people on this site who enjoy cooking, so i thought to start a thread for recipes and associated topics.

i'm assuredly no expert, but i reckon i cook tolerably well, and i know that any recipe i paste here, genuinely works - even for those who can only shop from supermarkets!

a starter recipe follows ......

cynic
Talking of Madeira, have you ever tried Sercial? It is a very dry form of Madeira and quite drinkable as you would sherry. Another interesting one is white Port, also dry and a bit like Fino sherry.

i am very fond of old madeira, but it's not that easy to come by ..... sherry is also much under-rated ..... in my 20s, i used to drink it several times a week, but i have not bought any for quite a while as i'm not sure how long it will stay fresh once opened

along similar lines, i still have some 1927 banyuls, which is extraordinary, and somewhat like a really good tawny port

Sherry keeps for a very long time because it is a fortified wine. The Marsala was 18%.

You can buy very old Madeira at reasonable prices. There are sellers with bottles going back to the 1800s. I bought someone a bottle from somewhere in the Fulham Rd as old as that.

Has anybody out there grown new potatoes in their greenhouse and if so can I put them in large planters, I have read that a 1ft wide and 1ft deep container would do but I am not too sure. Obviously space is needed down at the bottom for the crop. I must be mental but I feel like having a go.

i grow potatoes in "potato growbags" .... the system works pretty well, but you have to keep the potatoes well-watered and fed if you want a decent crop

Thank you cynic.

if you need any more advice or tips on this system of growing spuds, just post here

Well as a matter of fact and seeing how you have kindly offered - what kind of compost do you use, I have bought some vegetable compost, or do you use soil? I have bought chicken manure pellets. They told me at the garden centre to use 3 sprouted spuds per vegetable bag, £6 per bag - but the bag instructions says 5!!!! Do you put holes for drainage in your potato grow bags for drainage or are they already there? Hope you have time to answer what may sound like stupid questions but this will be the 1st for me - they may be ready in time for my 66th Birthday end of June or before. Many thanks.

i use my own home-made compost, but leaven that with some standard multi-purpose stuff
chicken pellets, i am absolutely sure, are just very high nitrogen, which is NOT what is required.
something like growmore is fine, as is blood and bone and stuff like that
your garden centre will sell specialised (o'priced!) potato feed, but check out the feed balance in that - high potassium? - and then buy something sensibly priced

very important to keep the potatoes well-watered without waterlogging them
specialised potato bags should already have plenty of drainage holes in them

once they get going, i reckon to add feed perhaps once a month, but then i'm starting with very good quality compost anyway, so you may need to do every couple of weeks

don't expect too high a yield, but they're certainly fun to grow, and the taste of course, leaves supermarket spuds for dead

i like to grow things like pink fir apple and salad potatoes
there's also a strange one that is delicious, but very silly money unless you can find it on a late special offer deal - La Bonotte

bet they arent as good as sainsburys salad potatoes which are superb.

for pretty obvious reasons, there's nothing to beat home-grown veg picked straight from the garden and into the pot

my local siansbury's is interesting
about 3 years ago, they "stole" a really good site from waitrose, but stocked only relative rubbish and anyone who wanted quality, still went to the small local waitrose or to a large one about 15 miles away

however, the sainsbury's manager had a brain and registered what people were doing
accordingly, the quality of fruit and veg is now nearly always very good indeed, and it's brought in a lot of customers
that said, apart from beer on occasion, the rest of the stuff i really wouldn't want to touch - quality just isn't good enough for me

Thanks again cynic will have a go, 1st time for everything and never too old to learn. Probably use one compost bin which is broken at the bottom for some outside. Will grow the rest in the greenhouse me thinks. I have the blood and bone stuff as well - Oh! I am quite excited, doesn't take much to please me. ha! ha!

a greenhouse will be far too hot and if your old compost bin is plastic, then that may also cause probs in the summer as it can't breathe

Back to the drawing board and find some potato grow bags cheaper than the two I have just bought for £6 each, admittedly they came with the compost so I suppose it is not too bad. Not ready to plant them yet so I have plenty of time. Cheers.

i don't know which bags you bought, but the ones i have should last several years

May I ask where did you get them from?

The two I bought are Miracle Grow Sacks - if that means anything to you. Have to feed apparently after 6 weeks.

from my local wyvale last year or the year before
certainly you should feed after 6 weeks, and as i am sure is instructed, regularly thereafter.

don't expect the massive crops that their pretty pix portray, but certainly if you do not water thoroughly and regularly, there will be a tendency to scab - unsightly but nothing much else - and also smaller yileds

Thanks again.

Just ordered some bags on line £2.99 each one is supposed to be able to use them again, we shall see. I looked at your garden centre and found them cheaper so how many spuds do you put in yours cynic - these hold 40 litres of compost. Sorry to be a pain in the butt - I really want to make a success of these.